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You look at the goals and they are two or three yards off Shrewsbury, and when you start games like that and put yourself on the back foot it is very difficult.

They have got to find the balance between attack and defence.

Stuart Sinclair of Bristol Rovers

I admire what Darrell Clarke is trying to achieve and where they are trying to get to, and I have been there myself when I was at Torquay United, where I developed a style of play of possession football, and I wanted the players to express themselves.

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The difficulty was in the transition, from going from wanting to be open and making the pitch as big as you can with the ball, to making it smaller without and we found ourselves having difficulties.

The way we did it was by pushing the back four higher up the pitch to compact the pitch, so when we lost possession the midfield players were closer to contesting the ball and we made that first ball go backwards which then allowed us to get into shape in defence.

Bristol Rovers manager Darrell Clarke walks over to the away fans after the game

And I can see where Rovers are at the moment, caught a little bit between the two.

It will come, it was a shame Shrewsbury came right after that performance against Oxford because they couldn’t build on it.

They came up against a Shrewsbury side who are flying at the moment, sharp in possession and at the top of their game and Rovers got found out.

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And the toughest thing to do when you get beat, and when you get hammered - and by the way at 4-0 I was fearful it could be eight or nine, the first thing you say as a manager at half time is can we keep a clean sheet second half, they managed to do that so they weren’t totally embarrassed.

Daniel Leadbitter of Bristol Rovers is closes down by Junior Brown of Shrewsbury Town

So when you are in that scenario the toughest thing is to say we have been doing a lot of things right and we can’t let this take us off our focus and what we are trying to achieve and for the players to keep believing that.

So the coaching staff have got a job on their hands - but they and the fans have got to be resolute.

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Darrell is trying to move this club on and he has moved it forward year after year, month after month, this is the first time you can say with the league position and some of the results that they have gone backwards.

But if you can understand what he is trying to do at the club it is totally understandable.